


melting

by llien



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Drabble Sequence, First Love, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, its just soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 22:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17734031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llien/pseuds/llien
Summary: Love at first sight was hardly a thing Riku believed in, but then he met Sora.





	melting

**Author's Note:**

> This AU belongs to Bell aka @dreamisoup over on twitter. The first drabble follows immediately after a duel between the two princes, where Sora breaks the mask Riku wore to hide his eyes. 
> 
> Short and sweet, and may or may not be continued.

_ Those words you said... _

Sora swung his feet. From their shared perch on the stone railing, Riku could reach the ground just fine, but Sora didn't seem to mind his disadvantage. 

Sora's land was beautiful. Even in moonlight, the foliage was rich in tone, a shimmering jade that caught his eye. Fireflies flickered in and out of being in the garden before them, creating a mesmerizing dance. It was nothing like Riku's cold and impenetrable home.

Even though Sora sat a proper distance from him, he still felt too close, too near. Riku hadn't replaced his mask yet, since following the impromptu performance he'd headed straight to his room. He'd heard the snickers of his court that had accompanied him, knew the rumors going around.

It was cowardly of him to run away, but seeing Sora's wide, stricken blue eyes meeting his had been the last straw. And now here he sat beside Riku, humming a lullaby Riku didn't recognize.

Still, Riku didn't break the silence. Sora's presence was comforting. Back home he was rarely approached, and certainly no one sat beside him for no reason at all, watching the same moonlit cast view as him. 

In the distance, a dragonfly skittered across the surface of a pond, ripples flowing in its wake. Riku had never seen a dragonfly before, or fireflies, or heard the frogs croaking and the crickets humming, or felt the humid breeze now lifting his hair off the back of his neck, warm like an embrace. It felt like Riku was being accepted — not that he had been exposed and deemed worthy, but that the lights had been turned off and he was free to exist as is.

"You know," Sora spoke suddenly, startling Riku. He didn't show it though, merely tilting his head the slightest bit towards Sora. From the corner of his eye, he could make out the tip of Sora's nose and his wayward hair. "I wanted to say sorry."

"For what?" Riku asked, tone all wrong. He should be angry. He should be indignant, sarcastic. Not... calm.

"For breaking your mask," Sora confessed. He shifted, wiggled, moved to sit on his hands. His feet still swung, bare toes flashing into Riku's line of sight before disappearing again. "I didn't mean to. I thought you'd block it."

Riku wanted to, but Sora had used a move that had distracted him. Riku thought too much, and it impacted him randomly. He'd fixated on the strange twirling move Sora had done and reacted a moment too late before that move was completed and the flat of Sora's blade came back to land thunderously against Riku's mask. He could still feel the impact in his skull.

Riku wasn't going to admit that, though. "It doesn't matter. I have another mask."

"Not for breaking it," Sora clarified. Riku's breath went still. "Your eyes... they're beautiful you know."

Riku's eyes, his cursed, weird, unnatural eyes, locked on the moon in all its ethereal glory, on the brilliant jade bushes and heavy flowers dripping in the summer heat, and felt something stir behind his ribs. It spread, stretched, unfurled, and reached tenderly out. It crept up his throat, pressed against his eyes, and Riku felt almost like he was going to cry, but they were dry. It constricted tight around his heart that stopped for just a beat before kicking in furiously at the intrusion.

Heat flooded Riku's cheeks, across to his ears, down to his nape. He wanted to hide his face. He wanted to hide Sora's. He wanted to grab the words and shove them back into Sora's mouth before they'd had a chance to exist, before they could've done whatever terrible spell they'd inflicted on Riku, but more than that, he wanted to hear it again.

_ Your eyes... they're beautiful. _

"It surprised me," Sora continued. "I actually had to stop and stare." He laughed, a kind warmth that effused Riku with a feeling like a thousand birds taking flight. "You shouldn't hide them. It's not fair."

That finally shook Riku from his stupor. He barked a laugh, short and mean. "Fair? To who?"

"The rest of the world, of course!" Sora said indignantly. Riku still couldn't look at him, but he could hear the smile in Sora's voice. "Everyone should see them."

"You'd be the first one to think like that," Riku said, rolling his eyes even as he lifted the back of one hand to touch his own cheek. It was warm. 

"Then, I'll change all their minds if that'll make you stop hiding."

It was such a ridiculous, childish statement, but it made Riku laugh genuinely. Sora couldn't keep such a promise, but even voicing it made Riku feel light as air. 

He leaned back on his hands, ignoring how this shifted him just a bit closer to Sora. He thought, absurdly, of grasping Sora's hand and kissing the back of it. Looking up to meet Sora's eyes, to let him see. To give him the chance to say  _ your eyes are beautiful. _

But Riku didn't.

 

_ That look in your eyes… _

Riku had changed.

Sora didn't think he was aware of it himself. The cold, arrogant prince Sora had first met was long gone— had disappeared that night in the garden when Sora had confessed how beautiful his eyes were.

They were even more beautiful now, crinkled with laughter, wide with awe, looking at Sora with something... something there...

That look was there now as they lay beside each other on a bed of flowers and meadow grass. Above them, the sky stretched blue and endless and wonderfully dotted with clouds soft as what Sora imagined snow to be, pristine white. The flowers were sweet-smelling and gentle on his cheeks when the wind waved them over, and Riku was only a few inches from him, so close Sora could feel his body heat.

They were flat on their backs, but at some point they had tilted to look at each other, and Sora had no idea how much time had passed since, just watching Riku's eyes. How his heavy lashes flickered, the arch of his brow, how the wind was slowly tugging Riku's hair from his face. 

He was sweet. Face open and soft, relaxed. He looked his age, and not like a prince who would wage war. He looked touchable.

Sora's hand had been on his stomach, and he lifted it now, fingers twitching in hesitation between his and Riku's face. Riku's gaze flashed from Sora's hand to his eyes, then down, a faint pink growing on his cheeks, before he nodded.

Sora thought his heart would tumble out of his mouth. It was beating hard, painfully, but he still felt so calm.

His fingertips glanced on Riku's cheek, and he closed his eyes and sighed, looking almost pained. Sora traced his cheek, then his jawbone, and up to Riku's lips. They parted as Sora grew near, and Sora passed two fingers over the swell of his chin. The very tips of Sora's fingers barely grazed the bottom of Riku's lip, and it sent a nervous trill down Sora's spine.

Riku's eyes were still closed, so Sora continued, across his other cheek, and at the top touching lightly across Riku's closed eye. The skin was soft and thin, and his lashes fluttered against Sora. 

He traced down Riku's nose, to his cupid's bow, and paused there. The entire time he'd been watching Riku's face, transfixed, mesmerized.

He was so beautiful. So, so beautiful. Sora thought he'd never seen anyone or anything more beautiful. 

Riku's eyes fluttered open and locked onto Sora's. The pink spread, darker, and Sora saw the insecurity and that something blooming in Riku's gaze.

Finally, Riku moved. He reached up to grab Sora's hand with as light a touch as possible, fingers wrapping around Sora's, tugging slightly, before he tilted his head down and kissed Sora's knuckles.

Sora gasped, not loudly or sharply, but softly, more a gentle inhale. 

Riku kissed his first knuckle, then the dip between forefinger and middle, his ring on the next one, and then lower on his pinky. He tilted Sora's hand up more, pressing another kiss closer to Sora's nails, and up more, until Sora's fingertips rested on Riku's bottom lip.

"Riku."

Riku looked up at him, green eyes enchanting, and taking, taking, something giving in Sora, falling away.

Riku closed his eyes, and kissed Sora's palm.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @ _oathbreaker


End file.
